


BACCALAUREATE SERMON 



AND 



ORATION AND POEM 



CLASS OF 1869 




BOSTON: 

ROCKWELL & CHURCHILL, PRINTERS 
122 Washington Street. 
1869. 



BACCALAUREATE SERMON 



AND 



ORATION AND POEM 






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CLASS OF 1869. 

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BOSTON: 

ROCKWELL & CHURCHILL, PRINTERS, 

122 Washington street. 

1869. 



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HENRY BARKER HILL, 
HENRY HOWLAND, 
LEWIS BENEDICT HALL. 



THOMAS PRINCE BEAL, Class Secretary. 



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THE SOVEREIGNTY OF LAW. 



A 



VALEDICTORY SERMON, 

PREACHED BEFORE THE 

GRADUATING CLASS OF HARVARD COLLEGE, 

June 20, 1869, 

BY ANDKEW P. PEABODY. 



SERMON. 



"I WILL KEEP THY LAW CONTINUALLY, AND I WILL WALK AT 

liberty." — Psalm cxix. 44, 45. 

FRICTION seems, at first thought, the prime hinderance 
to the working of all mechanical forces. On the other 
hand, it is the condition, the means, the constant auxiliary, of 
their efficiency. It gives them the hold without which they are 
powerless, the direction without which they are aimless. Math- 
ematically, it is but a modifying element in their respective 
formulas ; but without it those formulas would have been 
mere abstractions of the brain, not representatives of physical 
facts or possibilities. Man may overcome the steepest acclivi- 
ties on land ; he may steer his steamer in the very teeth of the 
hurricane ; in the air, he can sail only with the wind, because 
he has no holding ground. 

What friction is in mechanics, law is in the universe of 
mind. It seems to constrain freedom, while, in fact, it is the 
essential condition of freedom. Without it, there could be no 
aim, no direction, no fruitful industry, no successful enterprise. 
Without it, forethought would have no data ; effort, no pur- 
chase. Man would be the puppet of unforeseen circumstance, 
whirled about in the eddies of incalculable chance. Under the 
reign of law, we can choose with the hope of realizing, aim 



6 

with the prospect of attaining, work with the prophecy of suc- 
cess. Thus law and liberty are correlatives, as our text makes 
them, law alone rendering liberty possible. 

But are there no exempts? May not law be racked, and 
stretched, and tampered with, by a man of resolute will, so that 
he may be free, not under law, but over it, in spite of it, — so 
that he may neglect or violate it, yet evade the normaUcon- 
sequences of such neglect or violation ? So many think ; but 
it is an opinion which experience almost inevitably reverses. 
Happy they whose experience has not been experiment ! 

In Webster's Spelling Book, long the classic of American 
infancy, the first lesson in " easy reading " was, " No man can 
put off the law of God." One who knew the old lexicog- 
rapher, as I did, could hardly help thinking that he was 
inspired by a higher wisdom than his own ; for that maxim, so 
profoundly impressed upon the memory of the children whose 
culture he made his care, is the most momentous lesson that 
man can learn. It is learned, no doubt, by all, sooner or later, 
— by many, however, not in this world, — by many, only 
through a sad and fatal series of experiments, as fruitless as 
would be the attempt to bind the wind, 6r to stop the stars. 

I have thought that I could select no more fit theme than 
the supremacy of law, for those who are just emerging from a 
state of pupilage into one of larger liberty. Let us consider 
some of the ways in which young men often expect and attempt 
to evade or override law. 

In the realm of intellect there are not a few who expect 
success without strenuous endeavor, achievement without ade- 
quate labor, reputation without patient and persevering toil, 
the high prizes of professional or literary eminence without 
the self-denial and self-discipline which befit those who strive 
for the mastery. The really ambitious student sometimes 
accustoms himself to spasmodic effort, with long intervals of 
quiescence, and supposes that by intense mental action for short 
periods he can supply the lack of continuous exertion. I have 



lived long enough to know from observation, even did I not be- 
lieve in law, that there are no exempts on the arena of honorable 
competition, — that diligence is the invariable condition of 
permanent success and valuable attainment. Industry can 
almost create its own instruments. It can quicken the slow, 
sharpen the dull, and energize the feeble intellect, so that he 
who starts on the race of life with all the odds against him, can 
distance those who have everything but persevering industry 
in their favor. I might, were it fitting, cite well-known names 
of men regarded as foremost in their respective departments, 
who were commiserated at the outset for their blindness and 
fatuity in attempting high intellectual culture, so slender an 
estimate was placed on their capacity ; but who became pre- 
eminently men of talents, in the sense suggested by our 
Lord's parable, having had but one talent given them, and 
having multiplied it tenfold by its faithful use. One I knew, 
who held with credit the highest offices in the national cabinet 
and judiciary, who in his youth was at once the laughing-stock 
of his fellow-students for the utter hebetude of his intellect, 
and their wonder for his unprecedented closeness of application 
and abstinence from amusement and relaxation. Not one of 
them approached the eminence which he fairly earned. 

There can be no doubt that spasmodic, fitful, intermittent 
effort may accomplish a great deal in a little time. So may a 
horse, by hard driving, be made to carry twice his normal load, 
or to travel at twice his normal speed ; but the utmost aggregate 
of such achievements, in a month or a week, is less than that 
of his regular, systematic labor would be, while his capacity 
of extraordinary labor early declines, and with it, his power 
of ordinary, normal work. He is prematurely worn out and 
worthless. The men who prefer overwork, and work out of 
season, to sustained- and regular industry, for a while keep 
abreast, or even in' advance, of those whom they deem mere 
plodders ; but their fits of industry gradually become less fre- 
quent and less productive. At thirty, they can accomplish 
much less than at twenty. They pass the zenith of their fame 



8 

at an age when their more diligent coevals are hardly midway 
on their ascending path ; and then they lose reputation faster 
than they had gained it, and linger on in inanity, in a sort of 
living death, serving no valuable purpose, except to demon- 
strate the sovereignty of the divine law which measures the 
laborer's hire by his toil. 

Let it not be imagined that even genius creates exceptions 
to this law. It has furnished the most impressive instances 
of its inevitable operation. Take the case of Byron. No 
man ever lived in whom the poetic flame burned brighter than 
in him. But with poems and parts of poems that will last 
while the language endures, and will win him imperishable 
fame, he has left a much larger mass of the merest doggerel, 
silly when not worse ; and his works, taken collectively, pre- 
sent a melancholy spectacle of wasted powers, of premature 
senility, of a life which was little else than a lengthened sui- 
cide. Contrast such a career as his with that of Milton, 
whose genius globes itself entire in every sonnet and fugitive 
stanza, whose labors for civil and religious freedom might have 
seemed work and glory enough for the foremost man of his 
age, and whose mere pastime it was, — the sands of every 
hour utilized as they ran, — that found its recreation and its 

" Siloa's brook that flowed 
Fast by the oracle of God." 

Genius is not the capacity of creating without toil, but that 
of working greatly and gloriously. There are preserved, in 
Michael Angelo's house in Florence, juvenile sketches of his 
which any youth might have drawn, indicating the slow and 
tentative development of that Titanic power, whose vastness 
and grandeur were the miracle of his time. In the Ambrosian 
Library, at Milan, are large collections of drawings, in every 
stage of finish, and of every grade of merit, by Leonardo da 
Vinci, Raphael, and other world-famous painters, demonstrat- 
ing that they learned to give shape to their ideals by arduous 



&nd painful toil, and awakening the doubt whether even they 
would have left monuments of their genius more precious than 
the wealth ef empires, had they trusted to inspiration alone, — 
had not the capacity of patient labor come to them with " the 
vision and the faculty divine." I am constantly impressed by 
the life-records and the memorials of the men whose works 
are a possession for all time and for their race, with the con- 
viction that they had learned, as the price of their fame, 

" To scorn delights and live laborious days." 

Believe, my friends, that by the immutable law of God you 
may become all that it is in your hearts to be, if you will but 
pay this price. Your wills have hitherto been in part con- 
strained, I trust by a not unwise discretion, which has sought 
to give you, often, "not what you wish, but what you want." 
Yet this constraint — greatly relaxed under our present elec- 
tive system — has had its purpose and bearing in preparing 
you for the judicious exercise of liberty. A liberal education 
has for its end, as its name implies, freedom of the entire 
realm of intellect. Its aim is, not merely or chiefly to im- 
part knowledge, but to create the capacity of fruitful study in 
any and every department, and to initiate the student into 
each, just so far as to furnish him with the data by which he 
may choose his own pursuits warily and profitably. Thus 
furnished, you are now to make your election. Let your 
choice be free, unbiased by the opinions of others, — for you 
ought to know yourselves better than they can know you ; 
unbiased by sordid motives of interest, — for, even were they 
to be your law, they cannot be subserved by the choice of pur- 
suits for which you have no taste and no conscious fitness. 
Elect for your profession, for your chief study, for your prime 
pursuit, that only which you can embrace lovingly, — into 
which you can put what of zeal and energy is in you ; for 
that, and that alone, is your calling, and palling is a Provi- 
dential word, — it is God that calls you by the several tastes 

2 



10 

and adaptations with which you enter what shall be your re- 
spective fields of labor. But remember that taste, fitness, love, 
of themselves can never make you masters of your calling. 
They are of service only as they enable, and empower you for 
thorough, faithful work ; and to thorough, faithful work alone 
can the coveted prize accrue. Labor then, 

iC As ever in the great Taskmaster's eye ; " 

and from man, and from God, shall come, not in mere words, 
but in the solid fruits of success, growing reputation, extended 
usefulness, the plaudit, "Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vant." 

Let me now speak of the supremacy of law in the moral 
universe. I think that our errors of conduct, our moral 
delinquencies, our censurable habits, almost always have their 
beginnings in our imagined ability to set aside the divine law 
without suffering the consequences of disobedience. We all 
believe in the general truths, that conduct reacts on character ; 
that one is almost irresistibly led to follow his own example, 
and thus to make a single wrong actor vicious indulgence a pre- 
cedent for others of its kind ; that Ohstaprincipiis, Resist the 
beginnings of evil, is the only safe rule. But one often says 
to himself, " This is true in the vast majority of cases ; but 
I am an exempt. I see the peril so clearly, that I can guard 
against it. I can sin without repeating it. I can set myself 
a bad example, and refuse to follow it. I can stop myself just 
when and where I choose. I can get the pleasurable revenue 
of wrong-doing, and arrest myself early enough to shun its 
shame and its misery." 

But the divine law of] retribution is universal. It has no 
exceptions, and no exempts. And it is a law which works, 
not only in the outward world, but with even more discernible 
precision, on the soul itself, on its capacities and proclivities. 
You cannot yield to any form of temptation without bringing 
your whole inward nature into sympathy with the wrong you 



11 

do. You cannot escape the tendency to follow your own ex- 
ample. You cannot at will, after a single lapse, replace your- 
self where you stood before. You cannot resume to yourself 
the consciousness of blameless virtue. You cannot wash out 
the foul stain from your memory, or forget that you have en- 
tered into associations which a little earlier you would have 
scorned and spurned. You cannot fail to find, yourself, not, 
as before, on a table-land which, gives you firm foothold, but 
on a declivity on which your standing is insecure, and down 
which the fiery coursers of appetite and' passion may drag you 
with the bits and reins no longer at your command. The 
boundary between right and wrong once passed, the border 
land once left behind, I do not say — thank God, I cannot 
say ! — that there is no salvation for you ; but there is no sal- 
vation for you in" the way you anticipate, painlessly, shame- 
lessly, by the exercise of your own calm judgment and the 
energy of your own unprompted will. If it please God in 
his mercy, with your early deviation from the right, to bring 
you to exposure, open shame, and bitter self-reproach, so that 
you shall feel profoundly the full weight of the divine retri- 
bution, there is hope that you may retrace your steps, and 
plant yourself where you will henceforth be safe against temp- 
tation. No one who wisely loves the young can fail to rejoice 
when their first steps in the way of the transgressors are 
promptly and signally overtaken by the consequences they 
most dread. Many there are who owe their rising again 
solely to the speediness and the intense shame and suffering 
of their fall. But if visible and tangible retribution lingers, 
think not that it can be evaded. The later, the heavier. 

While I speak thus, I rejoice that I address so many who 
seem not to need these counsels, — who have encountered the 
temptations of early youth, only to overcome them and look 
down upon them. ' No one can recognize more heartily than I 
do the growth of character, the pure, high, generous tone of 
manliness, the sound principle and elevated purpose, represented 
in those of whom we take our leave to-day. I feel strong 



12 



confidence in the virtue which has thus far withstood all ad- 
verse influences, and has visibly grown under exposure often 
intensely perilous. Yet I cannot forget that there are for 
many of you yet severer perils in the near future, when the 
restraints that have hitherto been around you will be removed, 
and you must breast temptation, perhaps alone, perhaps in an 
atmosphere overcharged with a pestilential miasma, among 
corrupt examples, among those whose maxims and habits of 
conduct are at once depraved and ensnaring. What you will 
need above all things else is to take to your hearts the omnip- 
otent sovereignty of the moral law ; and, while science teaches 
you the reign of law in the whole universe, to extend its teach- 
ings to the whole realm within, believing that, so long as the 
eternal God shall live, man will reap as he sows : if to the 
flesh, corruption ; if to the spirit, righteousness, peace, joy, 
everlasting life. 

I would next remind you that the sovereignty of law in the 
moral universe is as full of encouragement as of admonition. 
It should give you undoubting hope in every virtuous effort, in 
the whole discipline of character. Here the law which con- 
strains you to follow your own example is unspeakably benefi- 
cent. The victory over alluring evil, which you win only 
by arduous conflict, is the precedent for a next easier conquest, • 
and for a next still easier, till the temptation, at first formidable, 
shall be no longer a power which it costs you a struggle to sub- 
due. On the side of good, no less than of evil, conduct reacts 
on character. Wait not to feel all that you want to feel, in 
order to do all that you ought to do. Do, that you may feel ; 
act, that you may experience ; obey, that you may have the 
inward blessing of obedience. You know the right, — that is 
enough for action ; - but the peace that passeth understanding 
is not for those who merely know, but for those who, knowing, 
keep the commandments of God. 

There are many duties that seem arduous. They are 
resisted by indolence, perhaps by false shame, perhaps by as- 



13 



sociations that appear unpropitious to them. But it is the 
first step only that costs. Every endeavor in the direction of 
duty brings your moral nature, your tastes, your associations, 
more into harmony with duty. Single right acts multiply into 
habits, habits deepen into principles, principles become solidi- 
fied into character ; and when this stage is reached, the right 
is immeasurably easier than the wrong, so that sin would be 
conscious self-denial. 

The prophet, in describing the way by which the ransomed 
Israelites should return from their captivity in Babylon, says : 
" Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead 
of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree." This is verified 
in every virtuous course, in every true life. The opening way 
of duty, of unwonted duty, is, or may be, flanked by thorns 
and briers. If nothing else, there is the difficulty of newness, 
of inexperience ; and there is wanting, of necessity, the in- 
ward joy, which follows, not precedes, right conduct. But as 
we go on, God plants the fir-tree and the myrtle on our patji. 
And they are evergreen. They cast not their leaves ; their 
coronal of beauty and glory never withers. They may be 
almost hidden from sight while draped with the gorgeous and 
bright-tinted blossoms of a happy youth and a prosperous 
prime ; but when the leaves from our earthly life-tree fall, and 
its flowers lie withered, these trees of God's husbandry shall 
still shelter and gladden our declining years, our closing days, 
in their perennial freshness prophecies of the eternal life that 
shall be ours in the Paradise on high. 

My friends of the graduating class, let me hope that these 
parting words of mine will find in your hearts the place that is 
their due. Keep the law, and it shall keep you. Honor it, 
and it shall exalt you. Submit yourselves to it, and you shall 
hold its sceptre and rule by its might. Serve it, and you shall 
find its service perfect freedom. 

Accept, with my counsels, my thanks for the happy memo- 
ries that you will leave with me, my cordial recognition of the 



14 



courtesy and kindness on your part that have marked our inter- 
course, my fervent good wishes for your whole future, in the 
life that now is, and in the life beyond life. May a loyal and 
approving conscience, the praise of good men, the love of your 
Saviour, the blessing of your God, be yours now and ever- 
more ! 



BACCALAUREATE HYMN 



OF THE 



CLASS OF 1869. 



BY J. C. BARTLETT. 



AT thy throne we humbly bow, 
Humble service, Lord, we bring ; 
Make us feel thy presence now, 

And accept our offering ; 
Hear our song of grateful praise, 
Hear the earnest prayer we raise. 

For thy bounty every day, 

For thy constant watchfulness, 

For thy comfort in the way, — 
All thy blessings numberless, 

Glory and thanksgiving be, 
Father, merciful, to thee ! 

In each other's friendship blest, 
Having thee for shield and sword, 

May thy favor on us rest, 

May thy love surround us, Lord, 

Till the shadows o'er us creep, 
And in thee we fall asleep. 



June 20, 1869. 



CLASS-DAY EXERCISES, 



June 25, 1869. 



#rfor a{ ferries- 



i. 

P 8,8 it. 

II. 

|rager. 

Br REV. A. P. PEABODY, D.D. 



III. 

gjtusit* 

IV. 

#ratioit. 
By FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY, 

Of Boston, Mass. 

V. 

|jojem. 
By GEORGE EDMANDS MERRILL, 

Of Cambridge, Mass. 

VI. 

By ARTHUR IRVING FISKE, 

Of Holliston, Mass. 



CLASS-DAY ORATION. 



THERE is a scene which charmers of the eye and ear have 
loved to paint, of present peace and festal idleness, just 
before impetuous excitement, rivalry, and danger. It is the 
bright and merry picture of the hunters' meet, where, on the 
appointed day, gather the experience and ardor, the beauty 
and manliness, of the country round. * 

There is a centre group of young, untried, fiery riders, 
gayly equipped, eager to rival the older whips in the break- 
neck hunt, and longing to be off. 

l£et gladly they pause, and prolong the time of preparation ; 
for there have come to see the start, to encourage the novices, 
and to adorn the scene, the fairest and the dearest of their 
friends ; and the borders of the picture show that throng of 
gay spectators, with bright colors lighting up the sombre 
place of meeting, whose very shadows add one rich element to 
the whole effect. 

Removed from the brilliant foreground of the picture, but 
lending to it all its dignity, and suggesting something in the 
scene more earnest than mere festivity, there is the group of 
masters of the art, .of leaders of the chase, the admired Men- 
tors of the youthful aspirants. 

Then the signal comes, the hunt starts, the groups break 
up, and the picture is gone, until the next merry meeting 
make the place bright again. 



20 

In such a picture are we grouped to-day : — and just before 
the start on the great chase which they will follow all their 
lives, the untried riders gladly pause, and welcome those who 
come to wish them safety, and honor, and success ; and gladly 
they meet those other friends, whose labors have prepared, and 
whose example must inspire, them for whatever work may 
come. 

Here, brothers, for the last time we meet ; and from here 
we spur away, following each the chase where the object of 
his ambition flies before him. Scattered, we all shall be, 
thrown, drenched, and bespattered many of us; every now 
and then, hearing from a height of success the "view holloa " 
of one who secures his game, and beckons to us below to climb 
and follow him ; and every now and then, as years go on, we 
shall pause in the pursuit and call the hunt together, fewer by 
those who have dropped away in the earlier chase, fewer and 
fewer, but more and more earnest, and nearer and nearer the 
prize and the rljsvard. 

But why do our words, with our hearts, rush away from 
what seems to claim them to-day, if ever, — the story of our 
past ? At our last meeting it were no small pleasure, and no 
bad lesson, to dwell on what we have or have not done, and might 
have done or shunned in these four years together; or to 
recall the glory of our class at recitation, at the bat, or oar ; 
to speak of that prophetic combination, in which even the title 
of our class predicted its prowess in the "6," and in the " 9 " ! 

But every earnest heart is looking forward; dreaming 
dreams, and painting pictures of the future, and even in our 
parting there is not unmixed sorrow, for "It is time to be 
doing," is the young man's throbbing thought, and " The 
student mUst show himself the man." It is the life we begin, 
more than that we end to-day, that makes it a great landmark 
on our path, and the hopes and fears, the duties and dangers, 
of his future work come crowding on the young man's mind 
to-day as never before. 

Let us look forward : and as we end our irresponsible, pass- 



21 

ive life of training here, and gather for thjs chase for which 
we have prepared, on this little bright patch of greensward, 
lapping over into the rough country to be traversed in our 
ride, and as we pause before the start to tighten girths, and 
settle seats, and wait the signal ; there is time for the new 
aspirants to wonder what it is that makes men fleet in the pur- 
suit, and foremost at the finish ; there is time to consider, as 
best our inexperience may, what that inexperience most needs 
to help it on ; what will keep the rider firm-seated and quick- 
eyed, and help him to success, without which his life is a 
failure, and the object of it unsecured. 

I shall depart a little from the custom of this day, and 
speak of one of many such helps ; of one quality, universally 
needed, and almost universally neglected ; essential to lasting 
success, alike in literary and scientific investigations, in polit- 
ical labors, and in the moral conduct of life. 

It is the quality of sincerity, of complete conscientiousness, 
of scrupulous, exacting, honest, unbiased fealty to truth, not 
the merely believing heartily what one does believe, but gen- 
uine impatience of error, rising into watchful enthusiasm for 
Truth ! 

The word is broad and vague, and he who urges the power 
of a quality like this, walks, in his definition, on but an isth- 
mus of truth, between errors on either side. On the one 
hand, I do not mean by sincerity that passive, open state of 
mind, which holds the hand always wide extended, to take 
whatever God may put therein, but never seems to close on 
anything, and hold it fast and firmly : that weak receptivity 
which is the essence of conservatism ; — nor, on the other, that 
prying activity of mind, which claims that everything honestly 
said and done is fit for every one to hear, read, and approve ; 
that headlong boldness which is the essence of radicalism ; — 
but there is a mental condition between these two, where one 
may stand and say : ' ' This is firm land : — and by this passage, 
and this alone, men pass the floods of fallacious theory, and 
enter the land of true greatness ! " 



22 

There is an exhortation often given to young men to have 
enthusiasm. Do we, who are so eager to begin our work, feel 
as if listlessness, lack of energy, were to be our bane ? Rath- 
er, I conceive, do enthusiastic rashness and ill-directed energy- 
need to be checked ; rather do we need exhortations to advance 
circumspectly, than simply to advance ; rather to be shown 
the way, than to be told to go ahead ! That way, it is my 
plan to show, needs from the start to be bounded and fenced in, 
and made straight by unprejudiced, single-minded, active, 
humble sincerity. 

The misguiding influence is as evident as it is powerful. It 
is simply the spirit which ever prompts us to see what we wish 
to see ; to work with the question in our minds, " What ought 
this thing to be ? " or " What can I make it to be ? " instead 
of "What is this thing?" 

"It is possible," says Jeremy Taylor, " for a man to be- 
lieve anything he hath a mind to." "For what a man had 
rather were true," says Lord Bacon, " he more readily believes. 
Therefore he rejects difficult things from impatience of research, 
sober things because they narrow hope, things not commonly 
believed out of deference to vulgar opinion."* And again, 
"The human understanding, when it has once adopted an 
opinion, draws all things else to support and agree with it." 

The consistent habit, then, not of daring for independence' 
sake, not of being weak for fear of error, but of being strong for 
the truth, coming from any quarter, and for the truth alone, is 
neither too trivial nor too common for discussion. 

" Seek truth, the pure, the simple truth. Give her thy soul; 
Nor faint, though. error's surges loudly 'gainst thee roll." 

This strength of mind, this perfect and habitual sincerity, 
is no distinct method of thought ; it does not imply a special 
mode of investigation ; it is simply the spirit in which any 
method is to be followed. Though Bacon urges the value of 
an active sincerity as a pillar of his system, yet neither his, 



23 

nor any, method necessitates the spirit. Inductive reasoning 
may be just as insincere as that of the most chimerical of 
classic world-builders. Sincerity is necessary to success in 
the system, but the system does not imply sincerity. 

It is the spirit that shows itself in accuracy of thought and 
expression, accuracy of style, which, Coleridge says, is "near 
akin to mental veracity." It is the spirit that makes men 
apply the severest tests to the grounds of conclusions, and 
leads to proportioned Or to reserved judgments ; and it is the 
spirit that implies humility, for it takes its very rise from that 
conviction of deficiency which is the essence of humility. 

And being a spirit and not a method, it does not refuse all 
hypotheses, or repress all the imagination which makes an in- 
vestigation charming. Let imagination present a subject in 
all possible and impossible forms, clothe the idea with anal- 
ogies, touch it with the Ithuriel spear of experiment ; still the 
spirit of sincerity keeps the theory distinct from the fact, 
separates imagination from judgment, constructs hypotheses as 
steps to truth, but never forgets that hypotheses do not be- 
come facts simply by becoming familiar. 

Two evident causes seem always to draw men from sincere 
opinions ; one, the influences or theories of the age or sect to 
which they belong; the other, their own desires, hopes, or 
conceits. Either prejudice or interest, the two old idols of the 
Theatre or of the Den, seem the ever-present, peculiarly per- 
suasive, causes of insincere thought. 

A scientific man, for instance, is impressed with the prob- 
able truth of a novel theory. He begins experimenting to 
justify his hopes, and all results seem at first to prove him 
right. But, all at once, what should be white is gray, the sum 
of two and two must be called five, or he must begin again. 
But gray, he thinks, is nearly white, and five is nearly four; — 
and the little mist of error that just dims his sunlight seems to 
pass away. But the mist becomes a cloud, and gathers, and 



24 



lowers over him more and more. Every further step shadows 
Him a little more in error, nntil at last he stops in blackness ; 
until he reaches some experimentum crucis, and, suddenly 
his whole scheme collapses ; or, as Mr. Biglow says, — 

" Until he comes bunt up agin a feet, 
And goes to pieces when he'd oughter ect." 

And all oyer his work is scrawled the neglected truth that 
white is white, and two and two make four ! 

Or if, as may be, this wholesome explosion does not come to 
pass he does but leaye his still pernicious, if not exposed, fal- 
lacy to b look the way of his successors. Such theories are 
sharp rocks, lying just below the surface at a harbor's mouth 
endangering entering vessels because no breakers show their 
whereabouts, which might have been the foundation of a beacon 
to make the entrance safe ! - 

Such is the danger of accepting hypotheses as truths, of 
theor.es becoming convictions, of making up the mind — and 
a mmd made up is a mind shut up. 

There is a force in examples near home which adds much 
them ° f ° bSerTing and the P leasure of recalling 

Many experiments have lately been made and described on 
the obscure subject of « Vivification," or "Spontaneous Gen- 
era ion. Yo„ read in the memoirs of Pouchet, for instance, 
that living bodies are created from organic material, previously 
containing no germs or seeds of such bodies: and then follow 
experiments which appear amply to prove the assumption. You 
read m the work of Pasteur, that such generation is, in the 
nature of things, impossible, and that experiments show the 
impossibility. You then take up a brief memoir of an Amer- 
ican a professor whom this University is proud to call her own 
and find the same method of research, but a new spirit the 
spirit of sincerity. First, experiments ; second, the diverse 
conclusions to which the experiments point, and, third, the 



2d 

admission, nay, the assertion that the question is, after all, an 
open one. 

Surely there is due, and by thinking men given, to one who 
sincerely takes a middle ground, in distinction from both sets, 
instead of one set of partisans, even more honor and respect 
than is owed him as a student and instructor. 

This spirit of moderation and circumspection should adorn 
as well the life of a politician. So little does it appear to do 
so, in fact, that the very name seems a term of reproach. The 
land is crowded with insatiate politicians who conceive states- 
manship to be the triumph of party, parties to be the path to per- 
sonal official success, to be deserted when they lead elsewhere, 
and success to be the gratification of ambition or of greed. 

When men ' ' repudiate ' ' to increase their income ; when 
men "reconstruct" on the old foundations which we thought 
swept away with the building they supported; when men are 
preferred to office because they are " sound on the main ques- 
tion;" — we need cite no special examples of insincere politicians. 
The jewel of sincerity is as rare as it is precious ! 

There is a much mooted question which has consumed the 
time and brains of our immediate legislators for years, and, in 
the many hot debates which it has caused, there have been 
peculiar opportunities offered and fully utilized for the argu- 
ments of both prejudice and interest. 

It is the question of a Liquor Law, the contest in this State 
between License and Prohibition. 

I do not comment on the right or wrong of the arguments ; 
but, apart from the justice of his cause, when you read an 
argument for a License Law, and know that the speaker was 
moved by the interests of his trade ; when you hear so-called 
philosophy used to inflame an audience into a zeal for temper- 
ance, and are sure you see an inability to distinguish false 
reasoning from true ; when worthy ministers of Christ seem 
blinded by constantly regarding the brightness of moral laws, 
and can endure no other way of executing them than the most 



26 

direct and evident, — are you not ready and proud, whichever 
side you take, to honor a man, who, in the full glare of public 
criticism, and standing on that tottering pedestal where public 
popularity raises its heroes of the moment for the worship of a 
day, yet, broadly regarding the whole subject both of means 
and end, speaks for what he thinks the right with unprejudiced 
sincerity ? 

He whom we have lately known as the first citizen of our 
Commonwealth, and who filled the first position in it at a most 
critical season, — he who by his previous positions as a leader 
among abolitionists, and by the opinions of his old allies on 
this new question, would have been attracted to defend this 
second great reform, — brought to his advocacy of a License 
Law an influence far greater than his repute as a lawyer, or the 
excellence of his argument could give. Men felt the force of 
his conclusions, because they' knew he spoke from his heart for 
the true and just solution of the problem, because they saw 
that the man was sincere. 

There is much akin to this spirit in the sincerity of moral 
conduct, — in the difliculty of standing free from religious prej- 
udices and personal interests in the service of God and man. 
There is so much exhortation to do good, and so much good 
done, on the one hand to get early pay, on the other to con- 
form to the world's standard of rectitude, — in short, to earn 
Heaven, — that salvation seems the reward of selfishness, and 
Paradise the abode of elected bigots. Moral insincerity makes 
men charitable or religious on receipt of a tacit promise to be 
repaid in earthly coin or heavenly bliss ; and in the life of a 
Christian teacher it places the doctrine and the method of 
faith before the spirit. 

When a man's opinions are more reverenced than his virtues, 
Christianity becomes a problem instead of a living truth, and 
its ministers philosophers through faith in themselves, or bigots 
through faith in ancient prejudice, instead of religious teachers 
and co-worshippers with their people through faith in God. 



27 

Need we go beyond our little world to find the religious 
teacher who, with no lack of doctrine, no lack of philosophy, 
inspires us far more with love of a spirit like his, who makes 
his life and home our own, and who has shown how executive 
rule and recitation routine may reflect a sincerely Christian life ? 

Who, then, is the true student ? He who, in whatever spe- 
cialty he works, works still with open eyes and an open mind, 
blinded by no prejudice and dazed by no premature convic- 
tions : he who labors not alone in the school of Herodotus, of 
Aristotle, of Bacon, of Newton, of Kant, but in that of Truth. 

Who is the true statesman ? He who conceives politics as 
more than the science of party warfare; he who conceives 
office as more than opportunity to gratify his own ambition ; 
he who is guided by precedents simply because they show 
justice, and demands reform simply because it will promote 
justice ; he who can change his mind, or, if convinced, is con- 
vinced of truth, not of expediency. 

Who is the true Christian ? He who, be his creed what it 
may, lives not for his creed or his church or his own salvation, 
but for the good of men ; — and bringing hearts to better faith 
and purer lives by self-forgetful counsel and care, losing his life 
for others, saves not his own alone. 

Brothers, in the life before us, in the intellectual, the po- 
litical, the moral work we have to do, let us quit ourselves as 
self-ignoring, world-forgetting, sincere men ; free from slavish 
chains of others' or our own forging ; submissive servants in 
the service which God calls us to, of sincerity and truth. 

But can it be that such a guide to success begins to lead us 
but to-day ? Surely there have been experiences here, in College 
study, in College politics, in College life, in which already 
it has helped us. Surely there is no ideal scholar whom col- 
lege students picture higher than he who studies only to 
learn; studies with ambition limited by no rank-list and 
enthusiasm for more than per cent, in njarks; who loses 
interest in himself in the interest of the search for truth. 



28 

Surely our hearts have warmed towards stout opponents in 
petty college wars, whenever we could feel that, while heads 
were wrong, hearts still were right, and we have soberly ac- 
knowledged that sincerity outbalanced error. 

But on one indirectly connected moral phase of this spirit, as 
marked here, we can but pause a moment, and with a bolder 
touch and deeper shading try to copy the original picture as it 
is painted in memory's colors on our hearts. 

Think, then, of your college friendships ! Think of, per- 
haps the many, perhaps the one self-forgetful, honest, candid, 
devoted, sincere friend whom four years of intimacy have bound 
to you for life ! Is it a delusion to believe that ties knit here 
will hold hereafter ? Is it a fact that time and separation will 
wear them off, or snap them soon ? May God grant that those 
err who say so ! It is no time to believe it here and now 1 
■ But if they do, if we lose sight of these and must go on 
under new lights, still is there justly thrown round such un- 
ions of hearts the halo now so vivid to our eyes ; still are those 
to be heartily pitied, who, with whatever other success, leave 
this place having missed its opportunities for friendships. For 
they have lost a great experience, and are ignorant of a great 
fact, — the power and influence of an absolutely sure friend ; 
more than that, the value of being what you admire ! 

It is the grand effect which we have already seen of open, 
frank, and true sincerity. 

Our hearts and minds are running back to memories of such 
real friends ; to-day, if ever, such friends seem dear to us ; 
such memories seem worth embalming ; such a lesson seems 
worth remembering, yes, worth repeating ; — and when hand 
seeks hand about our festal tree, heart will cling to heart, and 
of such friends each one will feel 



" that never yet, 
Through all the loving days since first they met, 
Leaped his heart's blood with such a yearning vow 
That they^were all in all to him as now ! " 



29 



There is one among such memories, hallowed more deeply 
now, to which many of your hearts have returned before me. 

When we recall sincere friendships, those of us who knew 
him well cannot but think of him whom it was God's pleasure 
to take away from us two years ago, — the only brother we 
have lost from our company, — David Page Wheelwright. He 
was with us long enough to love us well, and to show how 
much there was to love in him. And we did love him dearly. 
There was something in him which touched and won the hearts 
of even casual friends, and leaves his memory very fresh and 
pure and holy with us. Was it his retiring modesty, his manly 
demeanor, the beautiful simplicity which marked his life ? 
These could charm ; — they could not draw you so very near 
him as those were drawn who knew him best. It was more than 
this ; it was, I think, the self-forgetful, open, entire sincerity 
of his friendship for you, as his classmate, as his friend, and 
as yourself. This charmed us then ; this sanctifies his mem- 
ory ; this makes the lesson of his life for us ; and it is very 
right that in our hearts he should be, as he so often hoped to 
be, with us, if not of us, to-day. 



And now, with a look forward together full of youthful hope, 
and a look back, full of tender memories, we part; — and we bend 
for our Alma Mater's last benediction and her last word of 
counsel. 

Brothers, her counsel is but a word, a single word : " Veri- 
tas," which, written on her shield, she bids- you have graven 
on your hearts ; and, as the lesson she has taught you here, as 
the prayer of her heart for you hereafter, Truth she charges 
you to make the guide, and the search for Truth the one aim 
and object and end of life. 



POEM. 



A TRAVELLER standing at a mountain's base, 
With eager eyes and earnest, upturned face, 
Feasts long upon the beauties that arise 
From grassy vale to clear blue morning skies, 
And as the folds of gray about the top 
Take on their golden hues as cometh up 
The opposite sun, and as each tree and rock, 
Each leaping brook and -dry and shrivelled stock 
Puts on its shimmering garb, and seems to be 
A dazzling part of some fair mystery, 
Of some loved home of fays and elfin folk, 
Such glorious scenes desires more deep provoke, 
And now he climbs with ever hastening feet, 
Eager such sparkling realms aloft to meet. 
But ah ! the summit is not half-way gained, 
When he is wearied and his senses pained ; 
He marvels at the bareness of the place, 
For all around has lost its distant grace. 
'Twas yonder cliff with bald and beetling brow 
A fairy castle seemed to him but now ; 
This lightning- stricken pine shone like a spire 
Viewed from below. But still with eager fire 
He presses upward, hoping yet to see 
Ere long that gold-capped summit mystery. 
He stands at last upon the topmost peak, 
Too worn and weary with his toil to speak 
The loss of all his erewhile joyous hope, 
That led him with such mountain steeps to cope. 
He sinks bewildered on the ice-cold stone. 
No voice he hears, thought scarce he calls his own, 



31 



As o'er him whirls a dark and blinding mist 
Of cloud and rain, and in his ear is hissed 
The threatenings of the storm, that, far away, 
Bore such a semblance of the brightest day. 

Four years with all their toil and joys are past, 
And we have reached the summit too, at last, 
We stood, how short a time ago it seems ! 
Within the valley of our boyhood's dreams. 
We gazed before and upward, and the rays 
Of life's bright sun seemed gilding all the days, 
That we should spend together here, with light 
Of magic radiance. Beautiful and bright 
Were all the joys we saw upon the way, 
But brighter still this crowning festal day. 
But now 'tis come, and in the sunlit air 
A cloud is passing o'er this scene so fair, 
While still far off we saw the brilliant sheen, 
Nor thought of all the sterner stuff between, 
Of bare brown rock, of briars and secret thorn, 
And in the brightness of the early morn, 
We deemed not that one gleam of joy to-day 
Could be by mists of sadness hid away. 

But now the breeze that comes from western hills, 
Our listening ears with its low calling fills ; 
The voice of southern rivers, gliding slow 
• Their seaward way, makes us their will to know ; 
And ocean's waves the same old story tell, — 
All whisper unto us the word, Farewell. 
We may not stop the ears and turn away ; 
We may no more the dreaded task dela}*- ; 
Life hath her duties now in other spheres 
Than that which has been ours the last four years ; 
And hearts responsive to her mandates stern 
Must bow, though still for past delights they yearn. 
So in our breasts, though there bright hopes are set, 
With present joy is mingled a regret, 
And still the law of life holds fast its own : 
The merry laugh must ever have its moan ; 



32 



And sorrow is united close with joy, 
As gold is never coined without alloy. 

But nay ! these thoughts should still be made to bless, 

No* make the smiles upon our lips the less ; 

But rather, as about the setting sun, 

When some long day of summer's heat is done, 

The clouds heap up their folds, nor yet do hide 

The brightest glories of the eventide, 

But, gathering up spent shafts of crimson glow, 

O'er all the earth a brighter glory throw ; 

They shall not cast a melancholy shade 

Over these scenes by parting dearer made, 

But, blended with our joys in one fair view, 

Hereafter give our day a better hue. 

And now, while still is resting hand in hand, 
Look back once more on this enchanted land ! 
Once more together tread the bright green paths 
We've walked, and reap sweet scented after-maths, 
To store away where Memory receives 
The harvest of the past beneath her eaves. 

Ah, who can e'er forget those verdant days 
Of Freshman life, or who will dare dispraise 
The patience and extreme humility 
With which we yielded to " the powers that be " ? 
When first we trembling sat in Harvard Hall, 
And listened to the proctor's low footfall, 
Fair Fortune favored us with smiling look, 
And helped us sate the greediest blue book. 
Then came the careful toil throughout the year, 
So filled with high ambition, hope, and fear ; 
And though there came to us, as unto all, 
From our great expectations many a fall, 
Yet still we struggled on with all the zeal 
A Freshman, of all men, can only feel. 
Our happy lot 'twas not to escape the doom 
That waited in each Sophomore's upper room ; 
And, though for men the fashion not at all, 
Oft were our heads graced with a waterfall ; 



33 



And we, thus learning life's unpleasant truths, 
No more were unsophisticated youths. 

And so the second year came on at last, 

Important, with indignities all past. 

But ah ! how sad, that clouded were these days 

By the suspicion even of a haze ! 

But let us haste, though still the truth must come, 

The powers gave publics, rusticated some. 

But oh ! chief bane of all this second year, 

Thou must not be forgot, the cause of fear 

To all from second-floors to trembling attics, — 

A vision dread of Sophomore mathematics. 

What though each class-day's poem sings again 

This mournful theme ! I still must join the strain. 

No matter what each student's predilections, 

He met the death of Puckle's Conic Sections ; 

Except it may be that immortal few 

Who dared the study to the end pursue. 

Enough ! for many an one before has sung 

The horrors stark around these scaffolds hung. 

Prescribed are mathematics done away ; 

We could not choose, but bless the happy day. 

And now with more of leisure than before, 
Come junior triumphs of the bat and oar. 
Oh, who can think on victories nobly won, 
On deeds of marvellous strength and cunning done, 
Nor feel, with new remembrance of each feat, 
The warm blood pulsing with a warmer beat ? 
We see even now our glorious Harvard Nine, 
The crowded seats, the excited, wavering line ; 
We hear the umpire's call, the sharp, quick hit, 
The deafening shout so quickly following it, 
And strain again our eager eyes to watch 
The field, a-tremble for a muff or catch. 

Recall the eager faces of the fair ; 
The sudden hush, the ball high in mid-air; 
The loud applause, the contest closely won ; 
The generous cheering when the match is done ; 
5 



34 



And passing shades in after years will yield 
Before the memories of our Jarvis Field. 

But how approach the yet remaining theme ! 

How name the heroes of our classic stream, — 

The winding Charles — of limpid wave and clear ! 

The whole world knows the victory of last year ; 

And now Quinsigamond we see again, 

If only naming Worcester and — its rain. 

The wild enthusiasm knows no moderate bound ; 

The wooded banks with short, quick cheers resound, 

And Harvard hats and kerchiefs line the shores, 

As rest the Harvard Six upon their oars. 

Friend clasps the hand of friend with beaming face ; 

Some, wilder still, rush into hot embrace ; 

All nature, nearly crazed by deafening noise, 

Seems startled from her placid equipoise ; 

Fishes and birds, and all beasts everywhere, 

In miles around, in water, field, or air, 

Tremble with fear, and even the low cloud 

Takes umbrage deep, nor scorns to weep aloud, 

While coveys of strange game in fright awake, 

And queer, red globes their flight toward heaven take. 

But, classmates, none but we can ever know, 

Within our breasts the' warm, ecstatic glow 

Of joy and triumph, as the assembled throng 

Swelled loud the praise that swept the lake along ; 

For we, as well we might, took double pay 

Of gratulation for the deeds that day, 

Exulting beyond expression's powers, 

That of the winning six, Jive men«were ours. 

But yet a greater work is now begun ; 
A nobler victory still is to be won. 
For Harvard men, and two from Sixty-Nine, 
With their four-oar shall cross the tossing brine, 
And with a mind that every fear condemns, 
Exchange Quinsigamond for English Thames. 
And if defeat shall prove- us too confiding, 
'Tis no disgrace to take a mother's chiding ; 



35 



But if we conquer, surely 'tis another 
Thing for the daughter to reprove the mother. 
We cannot doubt ! Old Harvard still must win ! 
Her sons are strong, their hearts are brave within ; 
And rival nations now shall shout their names, 
Victorious in more than Worcester games. 

But vainly now mid sports like these we rest, 
Time flies, it has been said : eundum est. 
And so the senior year, not to fatigue, 
We quickly pass. Our otium cum dig. 
To-day is ended, as we leave behind 
That book of marvels to the youthful mind, 
Political Economy, and turn 
Away from History's realm awhile to learn 
As much from life as from the printed page 
That tells of some benighted, long past age. 

And now, before we leave this lighter strain 

Of reminiscence, be it ours again 

To bow before fair Learning's sacred shrine, 

And pay our tribute to her worth divine. 

We feel to-day more dearly than before 

The love our Alma Mater to us bore 

In all the precious days forever past. 

Her loving arms in pure affection cast 

About our tender life, to shield from all 

The many ills that may the young befall. 

And humbled, sorrowing sons, who now must roam 

For the first time away from well -loved home, 

Remembering all our faults in bygone days, 

We turn upon our mother's face our gaze 

Of deep repentance, while we ask her smile 

And benediction on our life exile. 

We look no more upon the Past with pain ; 

Her wings are folded ; she comes not again. 

To-da}', the laughing Present, is our own, 

Though fleeting fast, with gold locks backward blown, 

And dallying with the kisses of the breeze, 

That craves her stay with these bewitching pleas. 



36 



For many a joy the fair maid offers us, 

With childlike face beaming and beauteous, 

And now half coy, anon, perhaps, too bold, 

The network of her charms she would enfold 

About us, and bewildering in her sport 

Mingle our thoughts in strange, unseemly sort. 

So, even while we stay to list her singing, 

Her merry laugh we hear melodious ringing, 

And, looking in our eyes with pleading glances, 

She calls us out to feasts and merry dances. 

Then mockingly she speaks : " Yon spread collations 

Rebuke while yet you talk of hard equations 

Forever solved, and of athletic games, 

Hardly less famed than those of Grecian names. 

Pastimes and studies ! Why of these so much ? 

The Languages and Logic, too, as such, 

And Mathematics with the whole long train, 

The Past's and Future's, are my sisters twain. 

I care not for these thousand and one ills ; 

Leave dull quadratics ! Partners for quadrilles ! " 

'Twere cruel, then, to tempt the beauteous maid ; 
She urges sweetly and must be obeyed. 

Classmates, we still are in the morn of life. 
We cannot stay the hours. The coming strife 
Of all the long, mayhap the weary day, 
We yet must meet, nor seek to turn away. 
The hours of youth glide on to heated noon, 
And, like the burden of some mournful tune 
That now is clear, and sweetly, sadly mild, 
And now is borne away in chords so wild 
Of whirlwind frenzy, that we hardly know 
The melody in this that thrills us so, 
Our lives may -lose their former semblance, rise 
To harsher moods than their sweet harmonies , 
While they are young and smoothly flow along, 
As does some meadow brook the flowers among. 
And then the long and peaceful afternoon 
Shall fade away and sink to evening soon, 



37 



And evening in its turn, though e'er so bright 
With crimson sunbeams, take the veil of night. 

Then while we may, how shall we serve the best 
Him who hath planted power within the breast ? 
Although by varied paths we must pursue 
Our onward way, one end each still may view : 
That through his faithful ministry of good 
It may be said, " He hath done what he could." 

Our study is not done. The years may roll 
Their onward course and teach the struggling soul, 
But yet with each more fondly shall we yearn 
For what the next has still for us to learn. 
•Voices of friends shall cheer us in our toil, 
The loves of homes shall calm the fierce turmoil 
Within our breasts, and our expectant hearts 
Glean hope from aught that sign of good imparts. 
No source of knowledge then must we despise, 
Seeming however small ; but careful eyes 
Must read the lesson that is hid therein, 
And surely thus a golden treasure win. 

God sendeth unto us full many a sign 
Where man would hardly seek a thing divine. 
The chattering brook, the varied flowers' perfume, 
The moonbeams that the wanderer's path illume, 
The happy birds, the rustling of the trees, 
The leaf embrowned when blows the autumn breeze, 
The waves that rim with white the sandy shore, 
The stars of heaven and clouds that pass before, 
All lovingly some secret good declare 
They have for us, if we but seek it there. 
So Nature teaches, but yet more does he 
To whom she ministers with hand so free. 

Our fellow-men have each some thing to give 
To him who fain would know the way to live. 
Not one so poor but hath this boon in store 
For him who humbly seeks it at his door ; 
And often he who drops in beggars' palms 
His offering takes again a greater alms. 



38 



Then never can our learning all be done ; 

Even the blotting out of life's bright sun 

Can only give us other worlds to view, 

Where everything is fair and always new. 

But ere we reach that hour, each clay begun 

Will bring new battles to be hardly won. 

Then in them all, oh, still be brave and strong ! 

Be champions of Right, be foes of Wrong, 

And, struggling on, ne'er breathing hopeless sigh, 

Be true to God and to humanity. 

And now we part, only once more to be 
United 'neath our classic, wreath-bound tree. 
Some go to homes and labors in the West ; 
Some to the South to heal her wounded breast ; 
And some the Old World's bounteous treasure crave, 
And pass with buoyant hearts the Atlantic wave. 
But far and wide from this our four-years' home 
Though it may be our wandering feet shall roam, 
The dear loved spirit of our class shall guide 
Our memories, as she hovers at our side, 
And in the years to come, when fair success 
Shall crown our efforts, and the world shall bless 
The bright, particular names, that, like the star 
Of evening, shine serene and grandly far, 
Bright guides to all, with grateful hearts we may 
Make common joy that they were ours to-day. 

Then classmates, brothers, turn we now away, - — 
Our college days are past ; we cannot sta} r . 
We count the cost ; for some things glad to go ; — 
Each one desires what here he cannot know. 
We long, like youthful warriors, for the strife, 
Through toil for the perfection of our life. 
For some things glad, — for others we refuse 
To pass with joy from what to-day we lose. 
But all is vain. The wave to shore has rolled ; 
The leaf has fallen ; the tale has ail been told. 
We try to stay these moments as they fly ; 
But as we speak the last escapes. Oood-by. 



ODE. 



BY ARTHUR IRVING FISKE. 



I. 

LIKE the thousands before us, we gather to-day, 
And with beauty in blossom and gem ; 
And we march on the world as high-hearted as they, 

To forget, be forgotten, like them. 
Forget thee, my brother? forgotten by thee? 

Alma Mater, thy blessing forgot ? 
Oh, dry with the dryness of ashes will be 
The heart that remembereth not ! 

n. 

Give thy hand to me, brother ! Farewell must be said. 

There is bitterness love would prolong : 
There are prayer for the living, and praise of the dead ; 

There are sorrow and promise and song. 
Alma Mater, God bless thee ! Dear Mother, adieu ! 

On our tongues are hurrah ! and alas ! — 
'Tis alas ! for the days that will never renew ; 

'Tis hurrah ! we salute thee and pass. 

Harvard College, June 25, 1869. 



CLASS SONG 

1869. 



Music selected by W. A. Locke, Chorister. Words by M. S. Severance. 



WE gather, now, classmates, to sing our last song ; 
Farewell to the scenes that have known us so long. 
Our fortunes may change, but wherever we be, 
Shall thought, Alma Mater, turn steadfast to thee, — 
Our thoughts, Alma Mater, be ever of thee. 

With a grasp of the hand and a vow we depart, 

To dutiful service of head and of heart : 

Tho' thinned be our ranks and tho' dimmed be our sight, 

Thy blessing, dear Mother, be on us in fight, — 

Thy glory, dear Mother, be ours in the fight ! 

And now that the sound of our song dies away, 
Bear witness, O beauty and brightness of day ! 
As bees haunt in music the blossoming vine, 
Shall musical mem'ries haunt old Sixty-nine, — 
Our hope and our love be for thee, Sixty-nine ! 

Harvard College, June 25, 1869. 



Class- §ag ©ffiars. 



ORATOR. 

FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY, Boston. 

POET. 

GEORGE EDMANDS MERRILL, Cambridge. 

ODIST. 

ARTHUR IRVING FISKE, Boston. 

CHIEF MARSHAL. 

EDWARD BOWDITCH, Boston. 

ASSISTANT MARSHALS. 

JOHN WAYLAND McBURNEY, Boston. 
GARDNER GOODRICH WILLARD, Chicago, Itt: 

CLASS-DAY COMMITTEE. 

EDWARD HICKLING BRADFORD, Boston. 
FRANK DAVIS MILLETT, Bridgewater. 
WM. TILLINGHAST BULL, Newport, B. I. 

IVY ORATOR. 

BENJAMIN LOWELL MERILL TOWER, Boston. 

CHAPLAIN. 

WILLIAM HUNTER ORCUTT, Cambridge. 

CHORISTER. 

WARREN ANDREW LOCKE, Charlestown. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 895 512 A 



